


Breath of life

by scalira



Series: I love you like the seasons love each other [2]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2016-10-17
Packaged: 2018-08-23 01:39:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8308774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scalira/pseuds/scalira
Summary: But then there was Meliorn. Beautiful, amazing Meliorn with his long hair and loose clothes. With his easy smile and kind eyes. The boy who came to his coffee truck every single day to buy some green tea. The boy who asked Jace on a date at 2am during his midterms, sitting outside the truck shivering because he couldn’t stop talking to Jace. The boy who kissed him in the planetarium under Jace’ favorite constellations. Meeting Meliorn was like winter changing into spring, like being given a second chance at life.





	

Jace never thought he would be one of those people who have special traditions with their significant other. To be honest, Jace never thought he would ever even _have_ a significant other. Sure, there was the occasional girl in high school and the rare hook-up in college. But he never thought he would actually want to share his life with someone. To wake up to someone every morning, to kiss them goodnight every night. To have fights and arguments and to love and hold someone.

But that was before he met Meliorn.

Meliorn came into his life right when he needed him the most. He’d just dropped out of college, broke and looked down upon by his adoptive family. Looking back to it, Jace can now admit that he’d been depressed and on the verge of death. Suicide was something he played with almost every single day.

But then there was Meliorn. Beautiful, amazing Meliorn with his long hair and loose clothes. With his easy smile and kind eyes. The boy who came to his coffee truck every single day to buy some green tea. The boy who asked Jace on a date at 2am during his midterms, sitting outside the truck shivering because he couldn’t stop talking to Jace. The boy who kissed him in the planetarium under Jace’ favorite constellations. Meeting Meliorn was like winter changing into spring, like being given a second chance at life.

They have a few traditions. Meliorn came up with most of them, but Jace isn’t complaining. They spend Christmas day in pajamas in front of the TV every year, no matter how much their friends and family beg them to come to their Christmas dinners. They have a Drunken Donuts every month, where they just get drunk and make donuts. Meliorn buys Jace flowers at least once a month. They host a Halloween party at their apartment every year and invite all their friends. And they have an Opposite Day the last day of every month, in which they eat dinner for breakfast and breakfast for dinner.

But Jace’ favorite traditions are their spring traditions.

Meliorn loves spring, and Jace loves Meliorn loving spring. His boyfriend plants some flowers every March on the first day of spring, and he tends to take home baby animals abandoned by their mothers. They ended up keeping a baby rabbit that now hops freely through the apartment, but Jace insists on just taking care of the other animals until they’re strong enough to live on their own and then set them free where Meliorn found them.

The lake tradition is Jace’ fave by far. They go to the lake every single year, no matter the weather, on May 15th, because that’s the day Meliorn kissed Jace for the first time. They only brought some snacks the first time they went, but now they prepare an entire picnic to eat. It has kind of become a tradition in itself: preparing a picnic to eat at their other tradition, standing side by side as they make sandwiches and fruit salads and what not.

“Don’t touch my sandwiches with your nasty meat knife,” Meliorn complains, snatching the knife Jace had been making the sandwiches with away.

“Is that some sort of euphemism for my penis?” Jace asks cheerfully.

“I have other euphemisms for your penis, babe. This is about your meat loving ass staying away from my healthy, vegetarian sandwiches.”

Jace looks him dead in the eye as he slaps extra ham and pepperoni on his sandwich. Meliorn gags and turns away, quickly gathering his vegetable sandwiches before Jace can contaminate them with his meat hands.

“I can’t believe I’ve been living with you for three years and you still torture me with your bacon breath and meat knives,” Meliorn sighs exasperated.

“Yeah, I’m a true villain,” Jace agrees as he packs his sandwiches.

“Mhh,” Meliorn hums, turning around to face Jace and leaning against the counter. “C’mere,” he mutters, already pulling Jace against him by the waistband of his boxers.

“Happy four year anniversary,” he mutters against Jace’ lips.

“Happy four year anniversary,” Jace replies with a small smile. He gives Meliorn a soft kiss and cups his cheeks, stroking his cheekbones with his thumbs. Meliorn allows him to deepen the kiss for a heartbeat before jerking his head away.

“You reek of ham,” he grumbles. Jace laughs and kisses Meliorn’s forehead before taking a step back.

“What can I say? I just love my meat. You’ll have to find a way to live with that.”

Meliorn makes a face. “I will, but only because I love you.”

Jace smiles from ear to ear. No matter how much he hears them, he’ll never get tired of those words.

“I love you too,” he says.

 

Despite it only being spring, it already feels like summer outside. The water in the lake is cool and refreshing against their hot skin, and Jace stays in it for the biggest part of the afternoon. Meliorn occasionally joins him, but he spends most time sitting on the grass watching him, absentmindedly making flower crowns from the flowers surrounding him.

“There you go,” he says proudly once Jace emerges from the lake, water dripping all over the blanket they laid out earlier. He places a pretty flower crown on Jace’ head and snaps a picture of him.

“Hey, you better not be snapchatting my nudes to all our friends,” Jace threatens as he sinks to his knees.

“Relax,” Meliorn says, “I only took a picture of your face. Nobody will be able to guess you’re not wearing swimming shorts.” He turns his phone to show Jace the picture, which he has already installed as his new phone background.

“Why don’t you have a picture of both of us as your background?” Jace wonders, sinking his teeth in his sandwich.

“Because your beauty takes up my entire screen,” Meliorn says smoothly. Jace gags, but can’t hide his red cheeks at Meliorn’s praise.

They eat lunch and sunbathe until their skin is all buzzing and warm. Jace steals some kisses and is pleasantly surprised when Meliorn doesn’t complain about his ‘bacon breath’ once. They go for a swim together, splashing each other and pulling each other under until they’re out of breath from laughing so hard. Jace notices how beautiful Meliorn looks with water droplets clinging to his long eyelashes, and he wishes they could stay in this moment forever.

“I love days like these,” Meliorn sighs contently. Jace couldn’t agree more, and he swims towards him to capture his lips with his own.

Meliorn wraps his legs around Jace’ waist and hums against his mouth, tilting his head to deepen the kiss. Jace groans and lets his hands wander to the curve of Meliorn’s ass.

“Let’s take this party to the grass,” Meliorn suggests, tangling his hands in Jace’ hair. Jace nods and allows Meliorn to untangle himself from him so they can swim back to the shore.

They take each other apart as the sun sets behind them. The golden glow makes Meliorn look otherworldly, angelic, and Jace can’t help but sit up to capture his lips in a deep kiss. Meliorn grabs into his hair and gasps into his mouth, moving faster and faster against Jace until he comes undone.

They fall back onto the blanket, Meliorn on top of Jace and both breathing heavily. Jace sprawls his hand over the small of Meliorn’s back and rubs tiny circles on it, kissing his forehead as he does so.

“We should get married,” Meliorn says casually, looking up to look at Jace.

“What?” Jace asks, afraid he didn’t hear correctly.

“Yeah. We’ve been together for four years. We live together. I love you. I want to marry you.”

“I – I thought you didn’t… believe in marriage?”

Meliorn smiles intimately. “I do when it’s with you. But we don’t have to, of course. Not if you don’t want to. I’m perfectly happy like this too.”

“Mel, are you serious?”

“As serious as I can be. I don’t have a ring and this isn’t the most conventional proposal in the history of marriage but… Jace, will you marry me?”

Jace props himself up on his elbows and Meliorn sits up too, getting off Jace and looking at him expectantly.

“Yeah,” Jace breathes, furiously blinking away the tears suddenly clouding his vision, “yeah, of course I’ll marry you.”

Meliorn smiles from ear to ear and flings himself at Jace, covering every inch of his face with wet kisses. Jace laughs and buries his face in the crook of Meliorn’s neck, holding onto his waist and not planning on ever letting go.

“Just to be clear,” Meliorn says around his grin, “we’re marrying during spring. Preferably outside. And we’re _not_ letting Magnus plan it, or he’ll have us marry in the Sahara desert on two elephants or whatever.”

Jace shakes his head and pulls Meliorn even closer to him.

“I don’t care about any of that,” he smiles. “All I care about is marrying you.”

Meliorn giggles and kisses Jace again.

Jace wants to say something, anything, _everything_. He wants to tell Meliorn here and now that he literally saved his life that spring four years ago. He wants to tell him that he has never loved anyone like he loves Meliorn, that he will never love anyone like he loves Meliorn. He wants to tell him he can’t wait to grow old with him, to adopt a child or two or three, to have endless bad days and endless good days and endless traditions.

But the only three words that leave his mouth are: “I love you.” And he says them again and again, _I love you, I love you, I love you,_ until he thinks those three words capture everything he has ever wanted to say and more.

**Author's Note:**

> I cried writing this........... I love my kids........


End file.
